Email accounts are nearly universally used for communication. They are also used as identifiers for business accounts such as provided by AMAZON® or APPLE®, and for social media accounts such as provided by FACEBOOK® and TRIPADVISOR®.
The ease with which email accounts can be opened can pose problems. There are numerous online entities which host accounts and issue email addresses. Other than corporate-type accounts in which email addresses are controlled by an administrator and assigned to specific individuals, most email hosts do not verify the identity of persons signing up online for these accounts or limit the number of email accounts that a single person can obtain with the host. Additionally, email hosts do not limit users from obtaining email accounts based on whether a user has already established one or more accounts with other email hosts. Accordingly, an individual person can obtain multiple email accounts from various email hosts (such as GMAIL®, YAHOO®, etc.), and/or multiple accounts with the same host. Each email account can be effectively anonymous. Often such email accounts are used for a variety of inappropriate, including malicious, usages, such as for illegal or unethical purposes. Examples of inappropriate usages include “phishing”, cyber-bullying, stalking, indiscriminate spamming, online impersonation, and fraudulent consumer reviews.
For example, an individual person can open 100 different email accounts and 100 different TRIPADVISOR® accounts, and then post 100 spurious reviews (either favorable or unfavorable) about a particular restaurant. Using inexpensive data entry labor from third world countries, firms exist that market a service to submit spurious reviews in order to destroy a competitor's reputation or build a reputation with fake reviews.
In another example, a teenager can open an anonymous email account and then send a nasty message to cyber-bully a classmate, which takes minimal time and effort without any financial cost.
In an example of fraudulent reviews, an unscrupulous vendor can arrange for a confederate to open an account, buy one unit of a product, and then post a rapturous review which is then published as a “verified purchase,” after which the purchase price is returned by the vendor. Thus, for very little effort and cost, a vendor can (a) skirt government regulations associated with truth-in-advertising; and (b) tout its own product. Similarly, such a technique can also be used to cause damage to a competitor. For an expenditure of merely a few dollars, a vendor can generate false accusations against a competitor using one or more of email or an online-retailer account set up in particular for the purpose of providing customer feedback. The victim may have limited or no available remedy. The prospect of large-scale misuse of customer reviews can render online review systems unreliable and/or useless.
In another example of email abuse, a disgruntled employee can open an email account to send abusive emails to an officer of the company. Even if an offending email address was ordered blocked, the disgruntled employee can open another email account, from any of hundreds or thousands of willing email hosts, and send additional emails.
In an example related to phishing, an imposter planning to phish for specific information from a particular party can open an imposter email account using an address similar to an email address trusted by that party and send a query from the imposter email address. For example, if it is known that one of John Doe's friends uses an email account bobjones@gmail.com, then an imposter can open imposter accounts bobjones@yahoo.com or bobjones1975@gmail.com from which the imposter sends an email to John, asking “How did your product presentation go?” John might thus be tricked into revealing confidential information.
In an example related to spam, organized spammers of malware can use multiple email accounts to bypass limits set by email hosts to control a number of messages sent or received.
In a further example related to impersonation, an imposter can use identification, such as by providing an email account, to access network-based services that the imposter is not authorized or entitled to use.
In a further example related to inappropriate consumer, seller, or posting behavior, such a user may make purchases or return purchases or post items (e.g., for sale, display, or usage) in a manner that is not consistent with a policy of the network-based service or norms of appropriate online behavior. Such inappropriate behavior can include, for example, piracy, failure to make timely payment, failure to make timely delivery of a product or service, etc.